Business - Banks

Greece risks running out of cash by April 20 unless it secures fresh aid, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters on Tuesday, leaving it little time to convince skeptical creditors it is committed to economic reform.
After talks with EU leaders including German Chancellor Angela Merkel in the past week, Athens said it will present a package of reforms to its euro zone partners by Monday in the hope of unlocking aid and avoiding a messy default.
"It will be done at the latest by Monday," government spokesman Gabriel Sakellaridis told Mega TV.
Merkel did not reveal details from her meetings with Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, but she did tell members of her conservative party at a closed-door meeting in parliament on Tuesday that Greece needs to work with the European Central Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the European Commission to unlock the cash injection it needs.
"Time is short," she said, according to party allies.
Comments from the German foreign minister and the chairman of euro zone finance ministers suggested slightly more optimism among Greece's partners that it may be moving closer to meeting the conditions needed to receive more cash.
"That process is moving once again, I say with some cautious satisfaction. Now there's hard work happening on complementary additions to the (reform) list," said Eurogroup chairman Jeroen Dijsselbloem, who is also Dutch finance minister.
"That they’re all but broke, we knew already," he told RTL Nieuws television. "But my message to the Greeks is then every time again: So then, work with us as quickly as possible on an adjustment to the program."
Athens is hoping the finance ministers will approve its list and allow the return of about 1.9 billion euros ($2.1 billion) in profits made by the European Central Bank on Greek bonds, the source familiar with the matter said.
The source said Athens also expected the return of about 1.2 billion euros in cash left in the Greek bank bailout fund that was taken back by the euro zone last month - something euro zone officials said the euro zone bailout fund would discuss on Wednesday.
Greece argues that its own bank rescue fund should have returned only 9.7 billion euros to the euro zone rather than 10.9 billion euros, since it had used its own cash reserve rather than EFSF bonds to make that recapitalization.
Greek officials have not gone into detail about the latest reform list. Sakillarides said only that it would not contain recessionary measures but structural changes.
The reforms are deeply sensitive for Tsipras, who came to power in January pledging to end austerity policies but was forced to accept an extension to a hated bailout program under the threat of a banking collapse.
Greece has received two bailouts totaling 240 billion euros since 2010 but its economy has shrunk by 25 percent partly due to austerity measures imposed by the lenders. One in four Greeks is out of work, and more than half of all young people.
AIR CLEARED
Tsipras discussed the reforms with Merkel in Berlin on Monday. Sakellaridis said that in a four-hour working dinner they discussed only the outline without going into depth.
Both leaders voiced mutual goodwill during a visit that appeared to have cleared the air after weeks of public acrimony between Athens and Berlin.
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said after meeting Tsipras on Tuesday that an improved climate between the two countries would help start serious negotiations for a solution to Greece's debt problems.
The politician told reporters this alone would not solve Greece's financial problems, but it was "no doubt a precondition to begin serious talks in the coming days".
Greek financial markets rallied. The two-year bond yield fell nearly 2 percentage points on the day to below 20 percent.
A spokesman for the European Financial Stability Facility bailout fund said Dijsselbloem had asked the agency to review the Greek case for the cash refund, and had also asked the Eurogroup Working Group to work on the issue.
The move appeared to be a gesture of encouragement to Tsipras after euro zone ministers previously said Athens would get no more money until its reforms were approved by the Eurogroup and implemented to the satisfaction of the creditors.
The source familiar with the government's cash position said Athens had lately relied on repo transactions - where it borrows money from state entities - to cover its cash crunch, but could continue to rely on that only for a few more weeks.
"Although it will be hard, the country can make it without help until about April 20, using the short-term borrowing from public entities," the source said. More»

Egypt-based Housing and Development Bank (HDB) intends to expand its current network of 62 branches to 100 within the upcoming three years, chairman Fathy El-Sebai said Monday.
HDB is currently studying the location in which it targets to grow its network of branches, bearing in mind the launch of mini branches and agencies to make use of the Egyptian Central Bank's initiative. The Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) has recently set new requirements for opening new mini branches by banks operating in the Egyptian market.
According to the new requirements, the banks are required to hold EGP 5 million in capital for every new mini branch opened in Cairo, EGP 2 million for the rest of governorates, except for Upper Egypt governorates which require only EGP 1 million for each mini branch.
The new requirements aim to facilitate and support banks' objective to spread across all governorates, with higher reach to new customers.
The chairman stated that HDB is targeting a 10% growth in its loan portfolio within 2015 through expanding into financing multiple sectors in Egypt, notably the communications and petrochemicals sectors in addition to the Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs).
HDB is planning to register 17% profit growth rates in 2015, compared to last year's EGP 306 million.
Moreover, the bank aims to increase its deposits volume by 7%, which jumped to EGP 15.145 billion in 2014 compared to EGP 8.8 billion at the end of 2013. More»

The National Bank of Egypt will issue a dollar-denominated bond on international debt markets by the end of June, in order to diversify its sources of foreign currency, the bank's chief executive told Reuters on Sunday. Hisham Okasha, CEO of the country's oldest lender, did not specify the exact size of the issue, but said in a telephone interview that it would be in the range of an issuance in August 2010 that was valued at $600 million. The interest on that issuance was 5.25 percent. The aim of the new bond issuance is "diversification of sources of hard currency for the bank", Okasha said. National Bank of Egypt, which is the country's largest state-owned bank, will invite 13 international financial institutions to compete to arrange the bond issue, he said. A successful deal could encourage a number of Egyptian banks and companies, which face a shortage of hard currency and have been shut out of international debt markets since 2011, to attempt their own transactions. More»

Banque Misr, Egypt’s second largest public sector bank, is leading a banking consortium to secure a US$500 million financing in favour of state-owned Egyptian Electricity Holding Company (EEHC).
The financing will go for speeding up EEHC’s works on new power stations in addition to its upcoming expansions, a banking source with knowledge of the matter told Amwal Al Ghad on Sunday.
The source referred that Banque Misr had promoted for EEHC’s financing in the current month, encouraging a number of banks operating in the Egyptian market so as to take part in the consortium.
In this respect, Egyptian Arab Land Bank (EALB) has expressed its willingness to take part in Banque Misr’s consortium, with an initial contribution of 100 million Egyptian pounds (US$13 million), the source noted. More»

The African Development Bank (AfDB) reaches an agreement with Egyptian government over a US$2.5-3 billion in aid, a banking source near from the talks told Amwal Al Ghad on Sunday.
The aid will be part of AfDB’s three-year strategy of cooperation with Egypt for 2015-2019.
AfDB’s current financial assistance to Egypt is worth US$500 million for 2015, the source said referring to the bank’s plans to secure greater assistance packages for Egypt in the coming period on condition of witnessing more economic improvements and better credit rating.
The source further described AfDB’s planned financial assistance package for Egypt of US$2.5-3 billion as ‘unprecedented’ since the start of cooperation between Egypt and the bank in 1974.
Since 1974, the volume of cooperation portfolio between Egypt and AfDB reached US$5.7 billion.
AfDB is set to announce the details of its renewed three-year strategy of cooperation with Egyptian government within next July, the source said.
Meanwhile, the source referred to the latest visit paid by Egypt’s Prime Minister Ibrahim Mahlab and ministers of international cooperation as well as of housing to AfDB’s headquarters in Cote d'Ivoire's capital, Abidjan.
The two-day visit aimed to activate the cooperation between Egypt and AfDB and to force the pace on carrying out the signed joint agreements.
During the visit, AfDB officials had assured Prime Minister Ibrahim Mahlab that the bank would fund developmental projects that are of high priority to the Egyptian government. More»